Washington DC, United States

The United States Department of Justice (DOJ) on Friday (Sep 27) issued criminal charges against three Iran-linked operatives for targeting ex-US president and Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump’s campaign. The three individuals are suspected to be affiliated with Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard. Masoud Jalili, Yaser Balaghi and Seyyed Ali Aghamiri were charged with conspiracy to obtain information from a protected computer, fraud and several instances of aggravated identity theft among other counts.

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Charges also include conspiracy to provide material support to a designated foreign terrorist organisation and eight counts of wire fraud.

According to the indictment unsealed Friday, the three men wanted to influence US presidential elections after obtaining information from the Trump flank.

The Trump campaign on August 10 claimed that it had been hacked and blamed Iranian actors for it. Several news media outlets, like Politico, the New York Times and the Washington Post also said they were provided with leaked confidential information from inside the Trump campaign but they refused to publish it.

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Last week, US intelligence officials revealed that operatives had tried to reach US President Joe Biden's campaign in late June and early July and mailed unsolicited emails containing excerpts of the hacked information.

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"Iranian malicious cyber actors in late June and early July sent unsolicited emails to individuals then associated with President Biden's campaign that contained an excerpt taken from stolen, non-public material from former President Trump's campaign as text in the emails. There is currently no information indicating those recipients replied,” the officials with the FBI said.

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But the Democratic presidential candidate and Vice President Kamala Harris' campaign later said it considered the Iranian action spam or a phishing attempt.

Iran has strongly denied allegations of interference in US elections. Iran's United Nations mission was quoted as saying by CBS News that "the Islamic Republic of Iran does not engage in the internal uproars or electoral controversies of the United States," adding that "Iran neither has any motive nor intent to interfere in the U.S. election; and, it therefore categorically repudiates such accusations."

(With inputs from agencies)